If Cameron wants his troops to rally, he must act like a general

From Tuesday's Daily Telegraph: MPs would fight to the death for victory, but they need the PM in the trenches with them

Defeatism is contagious. It is becoming harder to say with conviction that David Cameron will survive as Conservative leader, that the Coalition will last the course to 2015, and that the Tories can win an overall majority at the next general election. Doubts are gnawing away at the certainties of even the most sanguine of observers. More and more people believe that the Conservatives are doomed to defeat in 2015, and might – just might – eject the Prime Minister in a spasm of unintended madness beforehand.

Occasional leadership speculation has hardened into a daily chorus of criticism, threats and gloomy predictions. Panic is setting in, and where there is panic there is opportunity for those with ambition. Cabinet ministers are manoeuvring – the most prominent of them Theresa May, who in recent days has made an audacious case to be the stand-in of choice should events sweep Mr Cameron aside.

The Prime Minister, in turn, is torn between affecting a patrician insouciance and taking steps to head off trouble at the mill. He reminds those around him – rightly – that ambition is not to be feared in politics. As he once said of Boris Johnson, there is nothing wrong with wanting to be leader of the Conservative Party: if Theresa May and Philip Hammond (and, for that matter, Michael Gove, Liam Fox, Jeremy Hunt, Owen Paterson, David Davis, Justine Greening or even Adam Afriyie) want to press their case, they are welcome to. But he is clear that he has every intention of leading the party to 2015 and beyond, and to that end will use a party political broadcast later this week to remind his colleagues that he is in charge. Recorded in the form of an interview, Mr Cameron’s message will focus on the basics of what he is doing, who he is doing it for and what his central purpose is in an age when, as Labour felt able to joke on leaving office, there is no money left.

He will also rely on Lynton Crosby, his new campaigns chief, to deliver a specific message about politics in the age of instant internet comment, in particular Twitter. In a meeting with Tory MPs this week, the no-nonsense Australian will remind them that they are first and foremost participants, not commentators. No 10 is frustrated by the frequency with which backbenchers blast their random thoughts into the Twittersphere without regard to the embarrassing consequences when they are picked up and amplified by the media. “We can all provide running commentary on everything, but does that help us win the next election?” one Tory asks. It was David Cameron who once said “too many tweets makes a twat”: he wishes his party had paid more attention, and now hopes to persuade them anew that unguarded comments fan the flames.

The reasons for this fatalism, on Twitter and elsewhere, are plain to see. Mid-term is a bad time for governments with hefty majorities; for a Coalition riven by policy divisions during the worst economic crisis to hit the country since the war, the halfway mark is the slough of despond. The economy has not delivered the recovery George Osborne banked on, and his colleagues know that no growth means no votes.

For the Tories, the seasonal bleakness is made more acute by the lingering shame that they failed to win the last election, and the leadership’s unwillingness to confront some uncomfortable truths about what went wrong. The polls look terrible and have done for months; to MPs in marginal seats, they begin to have the feel of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Thanks to a charismatic leader – in Nigel Farage – who “speaks human”, Ukip has capitalised on popular exasperation with the political classes, and is dividing the Conservative vote. Big beasts are using their financial muscle to undermine Mr Cameron: Rupert Murdoch flirts with Mr Farage over dinner out of spite, while Lord Ashcroft poses as a critical friend of the party leader, but seems intent on destabilising him.

Mr Cameron has never been good at talking to his party, or embodying its everyday concerns, and so the members of that party, from activists to MPs, feel cut off from his leadership. When Dr Sarah Wollaston, the MP for Totnes, complained on Sunday – on Twitter as it happened – that the Cabinet was too “posh, male and white”, she touched a nerve for those who moan that the Prime Minister hides himself behind a chumocracy from his rarefied social circle.

“Leadership,” Viscount Slim said, “is that mixture of example, persuasion and compulsion which makes men do what you want them to do. It is the most personal thing in the world, because it is just plain you.” By that measure, we might conclude that Tory footsoldiers are behaving as if they have given up precisely because they have been given none. There are too many Tory MPs for it to be healthy who say that Mr Cameron does not provide the necessary direction or inspiration. Last week, a group of them were invited in for biscuits with the party leader, and some emerged mystified by his insouciance in the face of a crisis.

To develop the military analogy, the charge against Mr Cameron is that he is not behaving like a general rallying routed troops to launch a counter-attack – or even a fighting retreat. “He is too flippant and casual,” one MP complains. “It’s as if he and his mates are already planning for their public affairs jobs with JP Morgan.” That’s just one harsh voice out of 300-odd, but it is a surprisingly common view. Most Tories would happily fight to the death in 2015, even if they go down in flames, but they want evidence that Mr Cameron and his team are in the fray, fighting for their lives and relishing the battle.

Quite what the Prime Minister can do to snap his party out of its funk is not clear. After all, it does not take much to draw up a list of reasons the Tories have to be hopeful about their prospects, and they are worth rehearsing here.

First, the general election is more than two years away. Things change, and in politics they often change unexpectedly and quickly. To suggest that the situation will remain as it is is to deny the possibility of events. Second, there is the Opposition. Those in Downing Street have, it is true, shown a remarkable complacency about Labour, at times sounding as if they expect Ed Miliband to do it all for them. But with Ed Balls as his economic strategist, the Labour leader shows no sign of reversing his party out of a political cul-de-sac. All the polls suggest that Labour’s lead is marginal and will wilt under pressure.

Third, the economy is improving all the time. Barring an external shock – not impossible, of course – Britain should be back to relatively healthy growth by the end of this year. If it carries on through 2014, then Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne will be able to argue that, better late than never, they have got us through the worst. Fourth, the Coalition is accumulating a record of policy achievements, in education, welfare, and pensions to name a few, that is striking. Fifth, with a referendum on Europe, a substantial drop in immigration and possibly even a sea-change on human rights laws, Mr Cameron has shot the Ukip fox. Sixth, when he chooses, the Prime Minister is capable of political audacity and conviction: he can choose these again.

The Conservatives have got themselves into a vicious cycle that reinforces the well-worn claim that the party is fatally addicted to the disloyalty it showed Mrs Thatcher. But it’s actions that matter, not cod psychology. Mr Cameron wants his colleagues to show calm, courage and an unrelenting focus on the enemy. He must do the same.